Report: The Killers/M83 [New York, NY; 01/25/09]

Plus: M83 announce orchestral show with Los Angeles Philharmonic

Let's start with the end: "When You Were Young". Good lord. At Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, that song may have topped "Born to Run" from Bruce's last Garden party, I swear. Wish-you-were-here, high-on-life, I-wish-this-song-had-a-five-minute-coda sort of stuff. And the Killers put it at the right spot: dead last, preceded by a perfectly teasing "we have one more song for you."

The Killers are a band of limited means. Brandon Flowers booms but doesn't have your typical arena voice, the other dudes look like 5 a.m. Sin City detritus, and their stage was recession-ready-- a functional wall of lights, some fake palm trees, an overgrown flower pot possibly stolen from a two-star hotel lobby. But the sold-out show's assortment of white people-- brahs, lapsed hipsters, bridge and tunnel hipsters, Sidekick teens, knuckleheads-- came for the songs, and got them. No limits there.

The Killers have yet to release a wall-to-wall album, but they know which songs don't suck. So, right off, the best two from Day & Age : "Spaceman" and "Losing Touch". You know the rest. Losing-shit factor peaked during "When You Were Young" and "Mr. Brightside", naturally, but there were no huge lulls, even during the non-"Young" Sam's Town cuts. Sax and congas added requisite cheese while Flowers went rock star-- kneeling, lifting one leg onto the monitor, semi-pantomiming, holding the mic stand out into the audience for "I got soul but I'm not a soldier." He knows he's good, but he still couldn't help but smile while running on the white-leopard-print stage during "Brightside", i.e., "I could do this for quite a while without getting tired of it." Madison Square Garden, with its pomp, history and cavern acoustics, may be the best place in the world to experience the Killers. They made it seem that way, at least. Same thing.

[ Oddly, the Killers denied our request to take photos of their performance. Wouldn't you think they'd want as many flashbulbs on them as possible? - Ed. ]

M83 make the Killers' relatively prissy arena persona seem downright butch. The bands share a penchant for melodrama, but few fans. So while their shoegaze x 1000 waves filled the big room, nobody really cared. Which was weird. But made sense. M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez is about as far from a Flowers-type rock star you can get.

In fact, most of the uninitiated probably figured keyboardist/singer Morgan Kibby was leading the group with her glittering, MSG-worthy top and "we are M83, thanks for coming early" pleasantries. And, for all intents and purposes, she was the star. But Gonzalez didn't seem to mind; he was content trying to blow back the front row Maxell dude-style with layer upon layer of synth bliss. In the middle of the slowly-growing pit section, one kid was bobbing his head vigorously. For an opening indie band at MSG, that's about as triumphant as it's gonna get.

Hopefully the fan reaction will be more intense when M83 perform for the first time with an orchestra-- namely, the Los Angeles Philharmonic-- on March 7 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A.

Note: M83 are currently conducting a fan-made video contest in conjunction with Pitchfork.tv for new single "We Own the Sky." The deadline is February 20. Check out YouTube for more details .